


Who Can Say If I've Been Changed For The Better (i have been changed for good)

by HereSay_ThereSay



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Cooking, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, Recovery, Self-Indulgent, Sibling Love, Taako Plays an Instrument, Taako is a Mess, like seriously, projection to the nth degree, slaps taako on the head, this bad boy can hold SO much self projection in him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereSay_ThereSay/pseuds/HereSay_ThereSay
Summary: Taako is…Different.It’s not—it’s not anything drastic. He’s not a completely different person or unrecognisable or anything like that, but some things have definitely changed.(Or, 4 times Lup notied something was different about her brother, and one time Kravitz noticed how things stayed the same)
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 217





	Who Can Say If I've Been Changed For The Better (i have been changed for good)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first work here, and I hope you guys enjoy it! it might be a bit clunky because I'm still figuring out how to get these characters to sound and act the way I want them to, but I think it's still pretty good!

Taako looks different.

Lup knew this, she  _ knew it _ . She'd fucking went to pound-town on the nasty son of a bitch who caused the whole fucking thing, blasted that fucking jackwagon so hard he'd fallen out of her damn magic umbrella, but actually  _ seeing it _ ? For real? Looking at her brother's face,  _ really actually looking _ , without being distracted by the end of the fucking world or what the fuck ever?

It's some  _ wack ass shit _ .

It—It's not  _ bad _ , per se. It's just— _ different _ .

They're not identical anymore.

They still defo look related, like, super totally yeah, but they're not  _ the same _ .

They've always been—well. They've  _ always been _ . The two of them, together, Taako-and-Lup, Lup-and-Taako, inseparable, borderline fucking  _ indistinguishable _ , and now…

Lup is staring at him as he coats the chicken and broccoli in olive oil.

His hair is different, for starters. Still red, but less of a bright, shining copper and more of a muted, dull, reddish… brownish… colour. The waves are there, but they're no longer sleek and perfect. Taako has  _ friz _ z. And  _ flyaways _ . And fucking—fucking  _ split ends _ .

His body is the same, mostly. Still long and lean. But where it used to be all graceful lines and elegance, there's now something sort of jagged, sort of wiry about his build. More angles, sharp and pointy. He reaches up to pull the dried pepper flakes and garlic salt from the pantry, and Lup can see his fucking  _ ribcage  _ beneath his crop top (black, with the words  _ I'm a fucking ray of goddamn sunshine  _ printed on it in yellow fantasy comic sans), like some sort of bony xylophone.

And his face…

It's still his face, still recognisably  _ Taako _ , but…

His jawline is less pointed, less distinct. His cheekbones, too. He's no longer  _ chiseled _ , no longer looks like he was carved from marble by expert hands. And there are spots on his face, red marks and other little discolourations dotted here and there, and Lup can see the pores around his nose.

And then he turns around, a look of exasperation on his face, and looks and Lup, and she feels her lungs release a breath she hadn't known she was holding, and there they are, his eyes, exactly as they always have been.

He's got dark circles, now, and a few creases, but the eyes themselves are the same.

Round and bright and green like leaves when the sun shines through them, ringed with navy at the edges and gold around the pupil.

Those same eyes she's known all her life, crinkled with laughter and red with tears and squinted with suspicion and wide with surprise.

"Lup? Lulu? Knock knock, hello, anybody fucking home?" Taako says (repeating himself, apparently), snapping Lup from her thoughts.

"Huh?" she asks eloquently.

"Was it pretty on whatever fucking planet you were visiting?"

"Oh, yeah, just— _ beautiful _ , holy shit, the trees were made of cotton candy and the grass was made of rainbows. Real great shit. Twelve out of ten."

Taako snorts, rolling those bright, familiar eyes. "Well now that you're back, wanna help me make that one caramel-apple-strudel-dumpling-thingy? It's Maggie's favourite, and I—you—fuck, listen, you do the fucking crust better, shut the fuck up."

Lup grins from ear to ear.

"Hell fucking yeah I do," she says, standing up from her place at the counter and grabbing her apron off the hook next to the fantasy refrigerator. "You never put in enough butter, dingus."

"I put in the  _ exact  _ fucking same amount as you do, doofus."

"Guess I'm just better than you, then," Lup counters, smirking and hip checking her brother as she grabs the butter and flour and sugar from the cabinets.

Taako says something back, and then so does she, and just like that they're off, the two of them, together.

For a moment, it feels like nothing has changed.

**

Admittedly,  _ whoa what the fuck is up with your fucking hands _ is maybe  _ not  _ the usual way someone starts a conversation with their brother, but Taako and Lup gave  _ usual  _ a massive fucking middle finger, oh, 200-and-some-odd years ago, so whatever.

"What the hell do you mean, they're my goddamn hands," Taako replies, staring at Lup like she's a fucking idiot.

Which she is  _ not _ , thanks.

They're lying on Taako's couch, Lup with her head in Taako's lap, Taako with his feet kicked up on the coffee table. Barry and Kravitz are still out on duty, but Lup had finished wasting fools a bit early (what can she say, she's just that good), and thus had appeared in Taako's living room and unceremoniously flopped on top of him on the couch.

He's playing with her hair, which is honestly some A+ brother-ing, he's absofucking _ lutely  _ winning the  _ Best Twin Brother  _ award right now, or at least he  _ would be _ if his hands didn't feel, just,  _ super  _ fucked up.

He's got calluses on his fingertips, rough and hard and kinda scratchy where they brush against her scalp, and when she grabs his hand and drags it in front of her eyes so she can see, she can also tell that one of his fingers has a  _ open wound  _ on it, just, like, out and about, not bleeding or anything but certainly  _ there _ , all red and fleshy and sort of crusty at the edges.

It's honestly pretty gross.

"Ew, dude, your skin is like—it's  _ peeling off _ ."

"Uh, yeah?" Taako says casually. "What's your fucking damage?"

She blinks up at him. "Your  _ skin _ . Is  _ peeling off _ . Into my  _ actual motherfucking hair. _ "

Taako shrugs and scratches Lup's scalp again, and it feels fucking  _ incredible _ but that's not—there's other shit at play here right now, so.

She sits up, swinging her legs around so that she's sitting criss-cross on the sofa next to her brother.

"Dude," she says.

"Okay, alright, ch'boy's got it, shit," Taako replies, holding his hands in the air. "I just didn't play for a while, and now all the calluses are back, and okay, yeah, maybe I didn't fucking let one of them form up properly and it got ripped off, that's not  _ my  _ fault,  _ I'm  _ not a cleric,  _ I  _ don't heal shit—"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Lup asks.

Taako blinks at her once.

Twice.

Three times.

Aaaaaand…

"Oh  _ shit _ , you—I never told you!" he says.

"Never told me  _ what? _ "

"I'm playing bass now."

"Bass?" Lup repeats. "Like—like the instrument? With—the strings?"

"No, like the fucking fish— _ yes _ , the instrument, you fucking dweebo."

"Since the fuck when?"

"Since I got bored as fuck on the damn moon and Johann had a fucking extra bass around, I don't fucking know!" Taako shouts, throwing his hands in the air again.

Lup blinks at him again. “You any good?”

“You think I’d still be doing this if I fucking  _ wasn’t _ ?” Taako asks. “You see this shit, right? Like, the massive gaping wound on my hand? You think I’d be putting up with that shit with I wasn’t just— _ dope _ at playing bass?”

Lup stares at him.

Stares at the blisters and calluses and all the other little things.

Thin scars across his knuckles.

A strip of discoloured skin right below his ribs.

A cut above his lip.

The tremor in his hands.

The damage of ten years alone shows, the damage left by the end of the world  _ shows _ .

She watches as he picks at the skin of his index finger with his thumb.

This Taako, the one she’s just now getting to know, uses his bravado like a shield or a disguise, but the world has left its mark on him, and the marks are  _ staying _ .

“You should play for me sometime, Koko,” Lup says quietly, catching his hands in her own. They’re rough and worn and  _ warm. _

“No prob, kemosabe,” he replies, grin lopsided and open and  _ easy _ .

She smiles back.

**

He doesn’t cook as much, and when he does, he rereads every label four times and his hands shake and he keeps the Krebstar in another room.

He doesn’t twirl and spin and laugh as he goes, cracking jokes and adding bits of this and that and eyeballing measurements.

He’s quiet. Lup can see where he’s chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. He sets every ingredient carefully, counts everything out aloud and checks and double-checks and checks again.

The food is still good, but it’s not the  _ same _ .

She knows why, of course.

Taako had told her, one night, after everyone else was asleep and it was just the two of them and a kind of shitty bottle of wine.

“They all—they all died,” he said. “Forty people, dead, because—because I—I was selfish and stupid and—”

She told him it wasn’t his fault then, and she tells him now, when his eyes look blank, when he stands in one place for too long, when his hands shake so bad he can hardly hold a knife.

“Breathe,” she says quietly, one hand resting on his chest, the other on his cheek. “You’re okay. I’m okay. Everyone is—we’re all okay.”

He tastes everything first.

**

He’s pinned to the ground, caged in by the claws of the—the fucking— _ whatever the fuck _ this thing is that they’re supposed to be fighting, Lup doesn’t even fucking know except that it's got massive claws and teeth and fur  _ and _ scales and smells like boiled ass.

Taako is pinned, and Lup can’t—she can’t  _ help him _ , she’s trapped behind a wall of stone, part of the roof of this  _ stupid _ fucking cave that ha collapsed, with only a tiny window to look through, and there’s no one else around because they  _ weren’t supposed to need reinforcements, it was supposed to be easy-peasy, in and out, back in time for dinner _ —

Taako is pinned, and this fucking huge ass  _ monster _ is leaning over him, fangs bared, and—

Taako is  _ smiling _ .

He’s smiling and there’s something there, something sharp and dangerous and  _ new _ something Lup hasn’t seen since he stood up from the ruins of his show wagon, crackling with red electricity.

“Oh man,” he says, “this is gonna  _ suck  _ for you.”

And he disappears.

And then he reappears at Lup’s side, and he’s grabbing her hand, that wild look still in his eyes, and he says, “We, uh, actually need to fucking  _ vamoose _ , like, right the fuck now.”

And they run.

And Lup turns, once they’re far, far away, and sees the destruction her brother has wrought.

The cave is gone, and in its place in a column of ice and lightning and bright blue flames.

And Taako is  _ beaming _ .

**

Taako is…

Different.

It’s not—it’s not anything drastic. He’s not a completely different person or unrecognisable or anything like that, but some things have definitely changed.

He smiles more, for starters.

His grin is wider, now, and his teeth are just a bit crooked, and the whole thing does something ridiculous to Kravitz’s heart.

He’s kinder now, too.

He’s not  _ nice _ —Kravitz doesn’t think he’ll  _ ever _ be “nice”—but he  _ is _ …

Kind.

Kravitz sees it in the way he talks to Angus, ruffling the kid’s hair and sliding him an extra cookie and offering him fucking  _ tenure _ at his magic school even though the kid is  _ twelve _ .

He sees it in the way Taako invites Magnus and Merle over for dinner at least twice a week, laughing and smiling and making jokes that are just  _ teasing  _ instead of  _ bordering on cruel _ , sending the both of them home with massive containers full of leftovers and saying, “Come over whenever, my dudes. Mi casa es su casa and all that, y’know?”

He sees it in the way random people throughout Faerun stumble upon bouts of “good luck” whenever they most need it. Children with shoes coming apart at the soles and threadbare jackets will find their wardrobes full of  _ Taako  _ brand clothes, hungry people suddenly discover they’ve been selected to receive a lifetime’s worth of free food at  _ Taako  _ restaurants, struggling mothers will awaken to find bank accounts full of gold.

That doesn’t even  _ begin  _ to touch on the new parks and libraries that seem to pop up in every city, the food pantries and soup kitchens, the repaired roads and rebuilt buildings, each mysteriously paid for by a  _ Secret Benefactor _ .

Kravitz tried bringing it up, once, after a community orchestra that was about to have to disband was given a large donation from someone who had signed the gift with a winky face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Taako said. “I mean, good for them. It’s—y’know, music is important, and it’d be a shame to watch something like that go under, but—I don’t know what you’re implying, babe.”

Taako is a good liar.

Kravitz knows all his tells.

Some things, though, don’t ever change.

The way Taako blushes when Kravitz calls him  _ darling _ or  _ dearest _ or  _ love _ .

The way his loud, wheezing laughter shakes through his whole body.

The flippant, casual way he throws spells around, his hatred for waking up at any time before 10 a.m., the way he takes his pancakes with bananas and chocolate chips and strawberries and whipped cream, the way he drapes himself all over Kravitz, clinging like a limpet, smiling like the sun.

The way Kravitz loves him, completely and wholly and with a heart he didn’t think he still had.

And the way he knows Taako loves him, too.

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me what you think!


End file.
